Keats, At Least, Has The
Companionship Of The Painter Severn, The Friend On Whose "Fond Breast
His Parting Soul Relied," And Who Has Here Followed Him Into The Dust.
A few withered daisies had been scattered in the thin grass over the
poet, and one hardly dared lift one's eyes from them to the
heartbreaking epitaph which one could not spell for tears.
VIII
A FEW VILLAS
It was but a few minutes' walk from the hotel to the Porta Pinciana,
and, if you took this short walk, you found yourself almost before you
knew it in the Villa Borghese. You might then, on your first Sunday in
Rome, have fancied yourself in Central Park, for all difference in the
easily satisfied Sunday-afternoon crowd. But with me a difference began
in the grove of stone-pines, and their desultory stretch toward the
Casino, where in the simple young times which are now the old we had
hurried, with our Kugler in our hands and other reading in our heads, to
see Titian's Sacred and Profane Love (it has got another name now) and
Canova's Pauline Bonaparte, who was also the Princess Borghese, and all
the rest of the precious gallery. However, if I had any purpose of
visiting the Casino now, I put it aside, and contented myself with the
gentle sun, the gentle shade, and the sweet air, which might have had
less dust in it, breathing over grass as green in late January as in
early June.
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